


A Wish Too Big For the Fireplace

by Brigantine



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-27
Updated: 2011-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigantine/pseuds/Brigantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray hasn't got a thing to wear.  Really.  Not a damn thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Wish Too Big For the Fireplace

**Author's Note:**

> See, this started with Nos asking us all what we wanted for Christmas...

When Ray pads out of the bathroom, after showering off the vanilla ice cream and the glass of red wine courtesy of first, Maria's youngest somehow considering Ray a kindred spirit, and second, Frannie trying to reach across him to paw at Fraser, the first thing he notices is a whole lot of nothing. Nothing in his closet, and nothing in his dresser drawers but a few odd trinkets, including a green marble, a ripped movie ticket to "The Blues Brothers," and his grandfather's old watch. Ray's clothes are missing, disappeared, hangers and all, with not a shirt, a sock, nor a jock strap left behind, and Grandpa's watch isn't likely to cover much.

Ray hollers for Fraser, because sure, it might be a kooky idea that the Mountie would have suddenly slipped a brain cell and run off with Ray's underwear, but the wolf hasn't got the opposable thumbs necessary for getting into the closet, so unless he's been the victim of a home invasion by eccentric thugs desperate for a bunch of baggy jeans and old t-shirts - say maybe there's a new boy band forming in Ray's neighborhood, and they don't have any money for those bad-boy-cool stage clothes yet - that leaves the Mountie as prime suspect. Maybe there's some kind of bizarre Yukon Christmas Eve ritual at work here. With Fraser, who knows?

Ray hikes up the bath towel slithering inexorably down past his narrow hips and careens into his living room, yelping angrily, "Fraser! Fraser, where the hell are all my clothes?"

He spots Diefenbaker, curled up beneath the kitchen table, looking fretful and apologetic.

Huh.

Fraser is puttering in the kitchen, humming to himself and probably making tea, 'cause that seems to be Fraser's answer to every damn thing, including being drunk and disorderly and a wardrobe thief.

Ray barks, "Fraser!" and comes that close to actually stomping his foot in frustration, a near miss that just ticks him off even further, 'cause that is not a cool thing for a guy to do, no matter how annoying the Mountie gets.

Fraser turns from his noodling, and stands there calmly in Ray's kitchen, in his tight jeans and his favorite blue sweater - oh sure, the _Mountie's_ got clothes - and he's smirking, positively smug, an expression new and strange on Fraser's face, and that plus Dief trying to hide under the table sets off all kinds of alarms and suspicions in Ray's head.

"They're in the Goat, Ray."

Ray stands blinking stupidly for a moment, then glares, "How much of Tony's egg nog did you swallow, Fraser?"

"Tony makes an excellent egg nog, Ray," Fraser reasons blandly, making Ray want to throttle him, "and as tomorrow is Christmas, the consulate will be closed. Therefore, I allowed myself to indulge. As did you, I might remind."

There it is again. Smug. Condescending, even. Ray jabs a censorious and potentially Mountie-strangling forefinger at Fraser. "But I ain't the lightweight drinker here, and now you tell me all my clothes are refrigerating down in the Goat?"

"Yup." Fraser bounces lightly on the balls of his feet, and beams at Ray like a naughty elf.

"Great," Ray grouses, rubbing at the chill-bumps forming in ever-increasing ranks over his skin, "the Mountie turns out to be a _mischievous_ drunk!"

He grabs at his sleeping bag, still rumpled on the sofa where he'd left it this morning, after he'd fallen asleep last night in front of a late-night replay of yesterday's football game. Too furious to be bashful, he lets the towel slide to the floor while he unzips the sleeping bag and wraps it around his shoulders.

"Dammit Fraser, I want my clothes--"

\--and Fraser is _right there,_ purring at Ray, from way too close up, "Your sleeping bag gave me the idea, Ray."

Swear to God, purring, which is further proof that Fraser is drunk off his ass, and the last thing Ray ought to be here is naked, and wrapped only in his sleeping bag, especially since the warm, furry sound of Fraser's voice is going straight to the part of Ray's brain that sometimes, in the early morning when Ray's just waking up, likes to pretend Fraser's in the bed beside him, all warm and happy and capable only of using really small words, such as "Yes," and "Now," and "Raaayyy."

Ray hitches, "Sleeping bag?" and wonders where all his bad-cop outrage has jiggered off to.

"It's red," Fraser points out, his eyes gone all dark and hot. He's moving steadily closer, kind of sneaky, as though he doesn't want to spook Ray, but it's a little late for that.

Ray gulps, "Red?" and backs up against the sofa.

"Like a giant red Christmas stocking," Fraser elaborates, shuffling the last few inches forward, right up into Ray's personal, mostly naked space. "With you in it."

Fraser's putting off some serious heat, all flushed cheeks and knowing smile, and Ray's voice sounds as though he's swallowed a bug. "Yuh... you asked Santa Clause for _me_ for Christmas?"

"I did," Fraser confirms, and his unsettling purr has turned into a truly disconcerting big-kitty rumble as he breathes rum and peppermint all over the left side of Ray's face, right there by the corner of his mouth.

Jeezus. And dammit. 'Cause, hell. "That... that's a nice thing, there, Fraser, a good thing, a very seriously good thing, but see, you been drinkin'..."

"I am not that drunk," Fraser interrupts him, brushing Ray's left ear with first his nose, then his lips.

The intimacy makes Ray's knees shimmy.

"How quickly do you suppose I had to negotiate the fire escape in order to get all your clothes out of your apartment, and down into the GTO in the brief time it took you to shower?"

Ray calculates as best he can, circumstances being what they are, and he stutters, "Faster than a really drunk guy could do it without falling down the stairs and breaking his head?"

"Exactly." Fraser tugs at Ray's fingers where they clutch the sleeping bag to his chest, and it's a funny thing, but Ray can not figure out why he's bothering holding that thing up, when he's got a great big furnace standing right there in front of him, so he lets go. He barely notices the sleeping bag sloughing floorward, because Fraser is pinning Ray with that new sultry look he's developed over the last few minutes, a steamy expression that is way better than anything Ray has ever imagined in the fuzzy, honest space between sleeping and waking. Fraser puts the fingers of Ray's right hand into his mouth and sucks gently on his fingertips.

"Uck," Ray jitters. His ass is cold, and his family jewels are right out there, saying hello to Fraser's jeans, but he can't make himself reach down and pull the sleeping bag back up.

Fraser closes his eyes and hums, "Mmmmhmmm," around Ray's fingers.

The warm, wet lips, and the slippery, imagine-what-I-could-do-to-you-with-this tongue, and the fluttery eyelashes? That is so not playing fair, and while Ray doesn't figure Fraser for the kind of guy who sleeps around, still, things need to be clear between them before this gets completely out of hand, which it already almost is.

Ray takes a deep breath that threatens to turn into a moan on the out-rush, what with Fraser's tongue dancing over the sensitive pads of his fingers that way, and he gathers together all the little bits of his brain that are running around inside his head cheering, "Wheee wheee wheee!!!" and manages to put on his Interrogation Face when he lays it on the line.

"Only if you mean to be here in the morning, Fraser, 'cause I can't take just fuckin' around anymore. I can't do it."

So there they are, with Ray's heart hammering in his chest, and he's really wishing he had clothes on, jeans and boots and a t-shirt and his leather jacket, not so much on account of the chill, but because he has just _declared himself_ here, when he'd never meant to, and he's feeling way more naked than merely bare-assed.

But then Fraser gets this starlit look on his face, like Ray's just said something he's been waiting forever to hear, but didn't know how to ask for until now, and he stops sucking on Ray's fingers and opens up Ray's damp hand and presses his face into the palm, and he murmurs into Ray's skin, "As many mornings as you'll have me, Ray."

"Til we're old and grey and addle-pated?"

"Old and addle-pated," Fraser sighs, and if Ray didn't know better, which according to what's just been sprung on him, he apparently doesn't, he'd say Fraser looks pretty much over the moon right there.

Ray's brain bits and his guy bits all start cheering, "Whee whee whee!!!" again, and maybe doing some kind of Inuit circle dance together, an image that Fraser is going to have to explain to him, but not right now. Right now, Ray leans forward, snug up against Fraser's front, against the tight, rough jeans and the soft blue sweater, and he can feel Fraser's trembling, so apparently he's not as certain about all of this as he was trying to let on. Cue the egg nog - liquid courage, and an excuse, if it turned out he needed one.

Ray smiles, and nuzzles into the warm curves of Fraser's face; the crescent of his smile, the hard ledge of his cheekbone beneath the soft skin. He can feel Fraser's other arm coming around his bare shoulder, his hand splaying broad and warm over Ray's back when he whispers against Fraser's eyelashes, "I really am gonna want my clothes back, Fraser."

Fraser lets go of Ray's hand, and slides his own down along Ray's side, over his hip and then soft, soft and warm, over Ray's backside, and he smiles against the side of Ray's face, "How about tomorrow?"

"Merry Christmas, Fraser," Ray agrees, and then, "Hey, if we squish together real tight, I bet we can both fit into the sleeping bag."

 

\--#--


End file.
